When we heard that Art Brut and We Are Scientists were teaming up for a split Record Store Day 7” under the name WASABI, we said “Oh, that’s cool”. When we were asked if we wanted them to ‘do something’ around it, we said “Yeah, sure!” This group chat transcript is what they sent back. Bands, eh?

WASABI: ‎Messages to this group are now secured with end-to-end encryption.Eddie Argos created group “WASABI”Eddie Argos changed this group's iconEddie Argos: Hey!Eddie Argos: How is that?Keith Murray: Oooooh, yeeeeeahEddie Argos: Huzzah!Chris Cain: Now we’re cooking with GRAZEddie Argos: Love GrazKeith Murray: Wait, you’ve been to Graz?! We need tips.Chris Cain: Got a couple of Hermax beers and bean burgers, so we’re doing PRETTY WELL already, but…Eddie Argos: I think I was just there in the summer they have like an outside acoustic festival thing nearbyKeith Murray: We accidentally stumbled into a vegan restaurant simply looking for a place to sit and text to you, but our luck can’t hold.Chris Cain: Me, I’ve got a good feeling about GrazKeith Murray: We may have done just that festival. I think Adam Green headlined, so they definitely have good taste.Eddie Argos: We became friends with Nada Surf at itEddie Argos: And their singer bought Toby a kebab at the airportKeith Murray: Sounds like Graz is a hotspot for good things.Chris Cain: Nada surf are famously generous with cheap foodKeith Murray: We’ve known Matthew for like 15 years and he has NEVER offered us a kebab, so I don’t know what Chris thinks he’s talking about.Chris Cain: (They personally don’t touch the stuff!)Eddie Argos: It definitely endeared Matt to TobyChris Cain: He gave me some gum once or twiceChris Cain: And a stickerEddie Argos: He gave me a concerned lookEddie Argos: I was very hungoverChris Cain: Were you behaving badly?Chris Cain: AhEddie Argos: We used to play this drinking game called buffalo and the festival got obsessed with and sort of made me their mascotKeith Murray: We’ve been around a hungover Eddie many times. Still an endearing man, but frail and therefore maybe even more loveable.Eddie Argos: Or victimChris Cain: Rules for Buffalo?Keith Murray: Oh boy. At that festival, our TM drank a bunch of Adam Green’s booze and fell over backwards, knocking over several candles.Eddie Argos: If someone says buffalo to you and you are holding your drink in your right hand you have to finish itEddie Argos: If you have a drink in your left hand as well they have to finish theirsChris Cain: Not really a “game,” per se, is it? That’s just proper manners.Keith Murray: Thank god I’m left-handed.Keith Murray: Is the idea that you should always keep a drink hidden in your left hand?Eddie Argos: True. Fred once buffalo’d me as I was making myself a hot water bottleChris Cain: What an asshole!Chris Cain: And you had to drink the boiling hot water?Chris Cain: High stakes!Keith Murray: That’s why you should always make two hot water bottles at a time; one in each hand. Just in case!Eddie Argos: Anyway that festival loves that gameChris Cain: I wonder if people ever Buffalo nurses who are drawing bloodEddie Argos: We came back the next year and they were all rolling around drunk screaming buffalo at each otherKeith Murray: That’s the Art Brut Effect. I feel like that describes our entire tour with you.Chris Cain: It describes the entire music SCENE post-Art BrutEddie Argos: We thought you didn’t drink.Eddie Argos: I think that was comparative to us thoughChris Cain: Eddie, let me ask you a professional questionEddie Argos: This is a lot of typing.Chris Cain: Does it irk you when people pronounce Art Brut so that it rhymes with “butt”? And do you tend to correct them, or let sleeping dogs lie.Eddie Argos: I’d only ever read the name written down. So I thought it was pronounced like the aftershaveEddie Argos: But it’s FrenchEddie Argos: So the T is silentEddie Argos: So we’ve even been saying our own band name wrongKeith Murray: But you still lay into that T, yourself, right?Keith Murray: YepEddie Argos: So I’ll forgive butChris Cain: Do you get flack in France for that?Eddie Argos: In France I guess we’re just called ‘Raw Art’Eddie Argos: Which just sounds like an 80’s new wave bandKeith Murray: Going back to your Buffalo gamesmanship — I do feel like Art Brut’s affection for drinking was what really made us feel a kinship.Chris Cain: Or a great new Doritos flavorKeith Murray: I feel like you’re maybe the only lyricist who references casual drinking as often as I try to.Eddie Argos: That’s true! You do reference casual drinking a lot.Keith Murray: When I got to the gin reference in She Kissed Me... I felt right at home.Eddie Argos: I think it was that and our love of gamblingEddie Argos: 🎲 🎲 🎲 🎲 🎲Keith Murray: Compared to Buffalo, it seems like the stakes of Spinto Dice are pretty low.Keith Murray: I can lose a couple of dollars, no problem, but Buffalo sounds like the sort of game that chips away days of life.Eddie Argos: When was that tour? 12 years ago?Keith Murray: Yeah, 2006 or 2007?Keith Murray: I’m pretty sure we couldn’t survive a tour with you guys, today.Eddie Argos: Ours starts next weekEddie Argos: I’m not sure if I can survive a tour with myselfChris Cain: You’re a father now— has that tempered your approach?Eddie Argos: I think we’d be fineChris Cain: Having someone depending on your survival?Keith Murray: Or do you just have a new drinking buddy?Eddie Argos: I definitely don’t drink like I did in my twentiesKeith Murray: It’s sad. I think about all of the margaritas that need a home, and my belly can’t take them all in, any moreEddie Argos: That’s made me sad tooChris Cain: Our collective “laying off” has probably been a big factor in global economic downturnEddie Argos: Next time WASABI release a single it should be called ‘sad margaritas’Keith Murray: If nothing else, it’s made writing lyrics MUCH tougher.Keith Murray: Maybe it’s not too late to go back to the drawing board on this release?Eddie Argos: You used to carry a little notebook around and write stuff down in itKeith Murray: I think I was just always compiling alcohol shopping listsEddie Argos: I remember thinking it was a great ideaEddie Argos: But would constantly lose notebooks when I tried to emulate youKeith Murray: Did it ever have an effect on you? I gave it up. Every time I tried to shoehorn a pre-written thing into a song, it felt forced and stale.Eddie Argos: I’m still thinking about Chris’s Raw Art flavored DoritosEddie Argos: No I got some good stuff out of itChris Cain: I saw one of Keith’s notebooks once: it was 40-something pages of the license plate of some car that had cut him off in traffic months priorKeith Murray: 🤷🏼‍♂Chris Cain: (Credit to “MacGruber” for that joke)Eddie Argos: The ‘took me ages to get dressed this morning’ lyric from Alcoholics Unanimous is something I overheard and old lady say in cafe in NorwichChris Cain: That’s not surprisingEddie Argos: You must know the U.K. really well now?Keith Murray: You immediately recognized her predicament.Chris Cain: We’re aficionadosEddie Argos: Do you have a favourite place?Keith Murray: We’re big fans of Glasgow, but that love is tainted by the associated hangovers.Chris Cain: Sheffield used to rate low for us, but has skyrocketed in the rankings in recent years, for unaccountable reasonsChris Cain: Wonderful process in SheffieldChris Cain: *progressKeith Murray: Your old neck of the woods — the Bristol/Bournemouth/Oxford triangle is pretty great.Chris Cain: “The Honeyed Triangle,” if I’m not mistaken?Keith Murray: The services at Gloucester is maybe my favorite place in the UK.Eddie Argos: I remember waking up in your bus in Bournemouth and immediately having to leave back to London as I’d forgotten I was in the middle of recording an albumChris Cain: Rock stars are just like the rest of us!Eddie Argos: I line Toddington services. I’m looking forward to seeing it next week.Keith Murray: I don’t think we know that one. I’m starring it as a “Want To Go” on Google maps, now!Eddie Argos: Are we supposed to be talking about WASABI? This is all one ginormous pre amble before Ian joins in in a minute right?Chris Cain: Right!Chris Cain: So you painted a beautiful tableau for the cover of the vinyl. What were you aiming for with that?Eddie Argos: It feels like we’re a Monster truckChris Cain: BingoEddie Argos: smashing all other bandsChris Cain: Uh huhKeith Murray: I really liked your idea of actually labeling the smashed cars with actual band names.Keith Murray: Like a political cartoon. But actually good and true.Eddie Argos: I kind of wish we’d done thatChris Cain: “Coldplay,” “Roots Manuva”Keith Murray: There weren’t enough cars in the picture to be thorough, is the problem.Eddie Argos: WheatusChris Cain: “The Strokes,” “Wheatus”Chris Cain: Yeah!Chris Cain: I saw your Wheatus before I typed mineEddie Argos: Did we both just randomly think WheatusChris Cain: HahaChris Cain: I wishEddie Argos: DammmitKeith Murray: I mean, we definitely all immediately thought WheatusChris Cain: Poor Wheatus. They take soooo much shit already these daysChris Cain: Now this interview…Eddie Argos: We should have just written ‘all them other bands’Eddie Argos: One word each carKeith Murray: Damn itChris Cain: That way nobody’s upset for being singled outChris Cain: Deluxe edition for Christmas?Keith Murray: Push the release back! We’ve got some tweaks!Chris Cain: Nah, RSD’s one line you can’t mess withEddie Argos: Could have also made it the bloody corpses of our enemiesChris Cain: NSFW!Chris Cain: Remember, Eddie, our audience is a bunch of working stiffs! They want to be able to bring this record to the office and show it off.Eddie Argos: Also crushed cars are easier to paint than peopleKeith Murray: The cover would make a great tattoo I think. Ian should consider it.Eddie Argos: This is our second time recording a split single togetherEddie Argos: And the second time publishing people have stopped us using our version of The Great EscapeKeith Murray: The tyranny of the major label system!!Chris Cain: This is why Music is a second tier art form, a level below basketball and cookingIan Catskilkin: 🍆gentlemenEddie Argos: I think Ian is about to join the conversationKeith Murray: In basketball, it’s GOOD to intercept someone else’s ball and dunk it!Keith Murray: Daaaaaamn, IAN!Eddie Argos: But has to read the novel that is this chat firstKeith Murray: He’ll never understand what we all know, now!Chris Cain: Pull your pants up as the VERY FIRST thing thoughIan Catskilkin: The fuck are you lot taking about? I'm not reading all that, I'm sure I know all about itKeith Murray: Ian, buddy. Did you sweat a little when you heard the guitar parts you were going to have to work off of, for your cover?Keith Murray: I know you did.Ian Catskilkin: Yeah sureKeith Murray: 👌🏼Keith Murray: Should we wrap the interview up, there?Chris Cain: A dessert of solid reportage after the huge meal of bullshit‪Ian Catskilkin‬: This is like a cheap All you can eat buffet‪Ian Catskilkin‬: ...4 men wait for a punchline...Keith Murray: It’ll come.Keith Murray: Don’t force this.Chris Cain: Uhh… maybe something about horses? That shake anything loose?‪Ian Catskilkin‬: Dude you've skipped to the bit where you get home and try and birth that eelEddie Argos: We should have finished but I can’t help going back for more?Ian Catskilkin: Painful and a bit greasy?Keith Murray: And a breeding ground for disease?Eddie Argos: I think we have to finish as I have to run to the kita.Eddie Argos: To get JakeKeith Murray: We’re also loading into our venue.Chris Cain: And we’ve got gentleman.’s labors.Keith Murray: I think we really nailed it, though.Keith Murray: If this doesn’t move units, nothing will.Chris Cain: This interview will become the Wikipedia entry for WASABi‪Ian Catskilkin‬: Good evening Camden... we've been gentleman's laboursEddie Argos: I like you Ian coming in at the end with a cock emoji and some withering sarcasmKeith Murray: Shoulda been the album title. Push the release!Eddie Argos: I have no idea how we send this by the way‪Ian Catskilkin‬: Keith lines em up ^^^Chris Cain: I think from the desktop version of WhatsApp it’s not too hardChris Cain: I can research if you guys are too dumb and lazyIan Catskilkin: I'm gonna need some food now....Keith Murray: Surely one of us has a library card, and therefore access to an actual computer.Keith Murray: Boys, you’re a real pair of gems. 💋Eddie Argos: Have a good showEddie Argos: Hopefully see you soon‪Ian Catskilkin‬: Knock em dead dudes!‪Ian Catskilkin‬: Laters... off to the buffet for me!Chris Cain: See you on the charts!! 😘Keith Murray: Godspeed, men.

Taken from the April issue of Dork, out now. Record Store Day 2019 takes place on 13th April.

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